A federal appeals court ruled Friday that packages of Oracle Corp. software code for its Java platform are entitled to copyright protection, a decision that reinvigorates a closely watched company lawsuit against Google Inc.

The case centers on allegations by Oracle that Google’s Android mobile operating system infringed its copyrights.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled a U.S. trial judge in California was incorrect in 2012 when he ruled that Oracle couldn’t copyright packages of Java source code known as application programming interfaces.

Because the Oracle code is entitled to copyright protection, a jury’s finding that Google infringed Oracle’s copyrights in 37 Java packages must be reinstated, the appeals court ruled.

The court sent the case back to the trial level for further proceedings on Google’s argument that its use of the computer code constituted fair use. The jury had deadlocked on that issue.

“We are extremely pleased that the federal circuit denied Google’s attempt to drastically limit copyright protection for computer code,” Oracle General Counsel Dorian Daley said in a statement Friday.

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